Madmen

  Anyone that shoots anything is my friend....though when Joe Runnels called me and wanted a little adult supervision while deer rifle zero-checking two weeks before season I was trepidatious....the line would be packed with those folks who shoot once or twice....once or twice a year.

  Sure enough, it was standing room only at 31 West Range on the 100 yard rifle range.  MANY families with an assortment of rifles, from British sporterized WWII .303s to AR clones, all intent on zeroing in for the opening day of deer season.  Bored kids were poking around in the gravel for brass, wives standing around while hubby fiddled.  Bad scopes, lousy technique and a lot of windage and elevation knobs being cranked the wrong ways.  I'm happy that people shoot but amazed that many deer get killed.

  I had a nice spotting scope- Rick Crawford's old 25 power Kowa on his good stand.  Pasters.  Pushpins.

  I put up two 25 yard pistol bulls-eyes, one over the other at 100 yards and we started sorting out the three or four pretty good rifles that Joe keeps on call.  No problems: all his guns started off on the paper out of a nice Lead Sled rifle rest that he had along.  We even clicked over an AR with a little 4 power mil-spec knock off on it.  I used the standard loud voice to turn the line on and off and clear rifles while we were downrange but even then the guy next to us fiddled with his Mossberg while folks were in front of him.  I know everyone is excited but it gets scary.  Need to stand away from the open and empty rifles while folks are downrange, period.

Runnels on the AR.

  Brought my Ruger #1 and Remington 700 .308 to shoot cold bore shots and see if the zeros were where I left them last year.  They were.  Cold bore first shot checks are very much like what will happen in a deer blind- you won't be shooting a warm-ed up gun.  I won't clean them now until after the season.  Both of them were top of the X-ring at 100 yards with my handloads.  I'll wipe the fingerprints off now and them but that's it.  They are both in camo socks so they won't attract an eye in the brush.  I'm such a skinny guy that I can hide behind them.

Remington .308 with a doetag from last year.  Under the sock is a Gander Mountain cheek rest I built up to get good head position.  Joe sold me this rifle last year and it is set up to shoot pretty well.   

  Finished up by shooting a little 25 yard bullseye .22 with my old Ruger #1.  There's a pistol LEG match next weekend after the Garand/Vintage/Springfield/Carbine matches at Terrell.  My Les Baer and box are loaned out to James Pennington in Minnesota.  Going to have to borrow a pistol.   I needed the practice.  I hadn't shot a round of bullseye pistol since I legged out at Terrell with my pistol last year.

Beware old men with old rifles.  This rifle won the TSRA Springfield Championship once and the CMP Springfield SENIOR trophy at Camp Perry last year. ( I know:  Handicapped parking, but still, they have to give it to somebody!)  Its a great pleasure to carry and shoot.  1969 Lake City FMJs do the trick.

Nice little AR set-up.

Rem 700 and a doetag.....the hard way.

Last buck I killed with Ruger #1.  God only knows how many deer have been killed with this little 7X57.

The Swiss.  They shoot.  I've won the TSRA Vintage Rifle Championship four times with this rifle and the National Vintage Rifle Championship once.  The doe, not so much.  I just shoot whatever the Swiss shot.  GP11.  It works.

Daily Deer Cam, 2012 edition

  Put out cams yesterday and picked up two who stayed on the trees for six months with no supervision.  Downloaded a few files from them.

  Lots of scrapes working, all in the usual places.  My corn had gone weevil-ey.  Lucy remembered all the trails and just picked up a couple of ticks.

This guy made it.  He's a year older now.  

Skin tag doe and the skin tag looks like it got bitten!

Marked up little nubbin buck.

Nice big buck who made it.  Ought to be a monster this year.

Annual wandering big boar.

Bigfoot!

Little Kitty.

Bigfoot!

All from late last year.  I think the batteries ran out in late February or early March.

Proofs under bricks.

  I spent an hour and a half making proofs....and did 21 5X7 negatives.  Yesterday.  Nearly done, but it's slow.  All the 8X10s are proofed.  Tough format still.

  More lab work today though I am juggling several projects at once.

  Proofs were dry and I put them in stacks under a couple of taped bricks from the studio.  Kind of like deer hunting.  When the trigger is pulled the work is just beginning!

Clearing twigs from the edge of a shot.

Beginning processing on negatives from Canyon de Chelly.

Water temp out of the cold side is running about 70 degrees.  Very nice.  Just a handful of ice cubes gets my bucket-reservoir to 68 for processing temp.  Yesterday I ran four development runs and the negatives are looking very good.  Easy to over-expose in the West and I managed to keep it under control.  Have to rate ASA 400 Ilford HP5 sheet film at 600 for X-Tol and be VERY careful with light metering.

Carefully inserting a 4-dollar sheet of HP5.

Consulting with Jackson over a line.

  Two regrets: not taking my camera 200 feet up the Baby Pee-up Trail and not photographing the Shaman's crypt.  Next time, God willing.

Thurman on Baby Pee-up Trail.  It's a little mountain-goaty up there but we have managed it. 

  Now that I am in the lab I am going slow, not getting in a hurry, though I'm capable of running the whole 150 sheets in a couple days.  Just going to work them through little by little.  I've almost cleared out the sheet film holders that contained the last day shooting.  I carried 20 loaded 5X7 holders every day, (40 sheets of film), plus six 8X10 holders.  Two shots per scene with the 5X7.  I usually came back with just one or two holders unused.  Reloaded in the bathroom at the hotel.  Just a caution- some fluorescent tubes glow for a while after you turn off the light, so if you reload in a bathroom, take care.

Showing the guide what a view camera ground glass image looks like.

Filter decisions.  I used a green on some red walls to punch up the contrast and a polarizer to cut reflection.  Just stacked them once.

Working in a swirl.

The last day I had planned to work up the canyon on the de Chelly side on a couple of big walls.  Instead we went planatarium hunting on the del Muerto side.  It was all good.

Cottonwoods.

Ute raid cave.

Blue Bull.

Processing and proofing will take a week without rushing.

Canyon de Chelly in October.

Jackson hosted us for three 12-hour days in the canyons.  We spent two on the Canyon del Muerto side and one in Canyon de Chelly.  Long days lurching around the dirt roads or swimming through knee deep sand in his Land Cruiser.  The truck handled it well in 2-wheel drive as we saved the 4-wheel for tight spots.  I was surprised after I got over the terror of driving off into what looked like impassable conditions.  The canyon entrance is about 200 yards wide, solid tire ruts from side to side through powdery white sand.  That condition continues for several miles.  Being in the canyon requires a 4 wheel drive vehicle and a Navajo Guide.  We were well prepped with film, food and water.

 Finger and toe man at Blue Bull Cave up the CDM side.  We mountain-goated 50 feet up the little slope after driving to the base of the cliff.  Park service is about to close this off.  The cave roof looks very unstable to me with a big crack at the back and one over the headwall.

8X10 on some bounce-light cottonwoods.

  The canyons have many ruin sites and wonderful cottonwood trees.  The spectacular cliffs are full of light both direct and bounced off the far side.  Every corner could take a day to explore visually though we kept moving.  Much of the canyon bottom is fenced off in family preserves but there is more than enough accessible to keep you busy.  I worked with my 5X7 Deardorff and black and white film.  The 8X10 made a couple of appearances.  All three of us were iphone-camming constantly.  I used mine to make notes, vacation photos and preview my shots.  I used the zoom function to approximate my lens selections on my 5X7.  It was like having instant polaroid.

Working out a pattern of patina-ed wall stripes.

First shot of the trip in the canyon.  Maybe should have gone with 8X10 on this one.  Negative looks great.  The clouds were moving in and out and I shot when the light was softer.

Lunching on the tailgate.  Got to wear a WWII vintage knife the whole time but only used it to square sandwiches and quarter salami

.

Jackson hiking through the start of the White House Ruin Trail.

iphone notes.

Morning light warm-up.  Ran about 37 degrees early and could stay cool and fleecy in the shade until 10 or so.

Slaving over a hot Hasselblad in CDM.

After a planetarium on the roof at Blue Bull in CDM.

Genius-level consulting.

Katie and Guide Brandon wait it out while the rest of us are in photo-crisis.

Guide Thurman and I went up a little Navajo-cut trail.  There's a Hasselblad negative of this.  Hope I polarized it for the tree's sake.

Jackson and I trudged up another 200 feet above our parking place.  By this time our guide had learned to stay in the car.  There's a nice ruin at the bottom of the cliff below the shadowed shape.  The little knob we were on was covered with flint chips and grinding stones.  Used the 450 to get to the shape in the wall.  Lit by canyon bounce-light from the right.

Shaman's crypt in CDM.  A cougar denned in here for several seasons years ago and made it even more famous.  Needed to drag the 8X10 in here.  

Over Spider Rock but under the overlook in some hidden caves.  I found this area when I was a child.  There's a 5X7 negative of it from a previous life.

Incredible cottonwoods up and down both canyons.

Must be at least 200 years old.  The tree.  Not Katie.

Group of Navajo kids walking by down the CDM side.

Painting commemorating a Spanish expedition in 1805.

Video in the Canyon.

Photographing in Canyon de Chelly just a half mile past the famous White House Ruin.  Morning light.  Working the 8X10 Deardorff.

978 miles yesterday....

Wall painting.  Three Kings.

This is what I was after.  iphone note of it, far up on a wall in Canyon del Muerto.

Working the 8X10 Deardorff.  I didn't use it as much as I would hope but I did get it to go a couple of times.

The Texas border.

........while Katie read "The Hobbit" out loud.  I'd never driven that far.  We started at 8;00 in Chinle, Arizona and got home at 2:00 this morning.  We just didn't want to stop 200 miles short of home and our own bed.  We switched drivers and it worked pretty well.
  Only stopped for one meal at our old favorite, the Flying Star in Albuquerque.

  Coming back from photographing with Jackson at Canyon de Chelly and del Muerto.

Dentures on the coffin.

Not much else left.